So I am a player from the uk and have noticed that there is a big move among a parliamentary group of mps to put restrictions on gambling and more regulations.

from my reading and googling the most scary thing is they want to bring in affordability checks. where by gambling sites will be required to do affordability checks to assess what people can afford to gamble so that people with a problem dont lose what they cannot afford.

I am concerned this could affect me I am a profitable poker player and have been for some time not full time professional but I make money from the game I have a day job.

so i wont say how much I earn as that is my personal business but in the literature i read they mentioned concern that a significant number of the population have less than £500 disposable income a month. for those that dont know disposable income is spare money after food and bills and etc.

so I play mostly $2 $5 and $10 games a mix of heads up hypers and dons.

my average ROI approx is 5% i dont claim to be the best player but i make a little bit. now assuming I only play $10 games for example in order to make $50 a day I would need to play 100 games. when I am playing properly on a good day i can get in more games then this.

anyway that technically means I have now staked $1000 or approx £800.

one could argue that if I only have £500 a month disposable income I cannot afford to be gambling/staking £800 a night. Of course anyone who is educated in poker or even casual players/fish will know that this is not representative of the true situation and I am just restaking the same money over and over.

The thing that scares me is politicians and pressure groups may not know or care about this and may impose limits that say for example someone who has £500 a month disposable income can only be allowed to gamble say for example £200 a month which means I would be allowed to play approximately 26 games a month. for a total of $13 profit a month.

basically just subsidizing your income/making a living from poker would become impossible in the uk unless your already rich/earning a lot of money from work.

but then what if your job is poker? there are full time poker players in the uk who do this for a living, then could my poker be argued to be a part time job to? how would that work or would they class poker as non income and gambling only in which case pros have no disposable income at all as they have no income by this classification and only savings.

I am not the best at internet research I try but I suck at it. but so far when looking up what proposals mps are pushing for i just find affordability checks without anything that goes into detail or explains how they would do this.

if it is just deposit limits not to fussed I mostly cash out and can grind the money up if I had to.

do other people think this is a concern and does anyone have any actual details about how or what these affordability checks would work and what it would entail etc?

Good people shouldnt lose what they can’t afford online gaming. Should have been done a lot time ago. Online regulation is too lax and sites need to care better for addicts.

I've been getting emails from Grosvenor Poker for months asking me to send them all sorts of ridiculous personal info such as bank statements of where I work to show pay coming in etc.

They say they will block my account if no response and I've never responded to multiple copy and paste emails from them making requests and I can still do everything on there same as before. It's almost like they are doing it to show they are trying but not taking action until more government rules are implemented.

It is quite worrying for the future (if you're a degen like me) if the UK bring in more restrictions.

I agree.

I've had party contact me about similar to this when I had to redeposit a few times. They don't seem to care about the amount you are wagering repeatedly but rather that you can afford the amounts that you are depositing and that it comes from a legitimate source. So showing that you are a net withdrawer should be enough.

I don't think they will be analysing your actual betting habits but maybe they will if it is large buy ins. They can't possibly do in depth analysis on every UK player's finances and betting habits, so will have to pick and choose from certain criteria.

First, this is a well overdue reality check for everyone who thought Brexit will somehow magically reverse the ever advancing nanny state UK bureaucracy so craves. If anything UK is actually worst than the rest of Europe.

Second, poker rooms will just love this. Plenty of ways to skirt the rules when it comes to degens, it's not like there will ever be any lack of plausible deniability, while at the same time an easy way to get rid of profitable players. Maybe especially when those low or mid stake grinders win something really big and then the prize could end up being denied due to previous misrepresenting of their income.

Poker rooms will finally get their wish, only profitable players left will be those belonging to the stables. Stables the poker room in question obviously approves otherwise they would be long gone. Partypoker must love the idea since they made the king of stables one of their online Pros.

are you trying to troll? look I dont think many of us want to break up families take peoples houses away or have people kill themselves.

I disagree with the nanny state but I of course do not want to exploit gambling addicts and take their homes. I assume most people I play no not have a gambling problem and are playing for entertainment purposes or trying to make money from the game like me. In the same way that if I was a pub landlord I would like to assume most of my customers are just letting their hair down and having a good time rather then been alcoholics who are beating their wifes and children when they get home and inflicting psychological damage on their young.

In the majority of cases my opponents do not have a gambling problem just as in the majority of cases the customer at the pub does not have a drinking problem. I don't think we should limit everyone else from been able to drink because of a few alcoholics, I do not believe we should restrict everyone from gambling because of a few people with gambling addiction.

now if there is a way to stop alcoholics from drinking or limit their drinking whilst not putting restrictions on the rest of us I have no problem with that in fact I endorse that.

If there is a way to limit gambling addicts without stopping those of us that are responsible then sure no problem but I do not think we should all be restricted from gambling for a small minority who have a problem with it.

I do wonder how this will effect people like me who gamble as a sole source of income. I'm pretty sure it will be perfectly fine because I have bank statements but you never know.

That said, these regulations are a great thing because lots people are stupid or ill disciplined or sometimes drunk or whatever and lives get ruined every day. If gambling is supposed to be just for fun then mechanisms need to be in place to make sure that is the case.

Bearing in mind how much money the government will need to recoup over the next few years, I think players should be a lot more worried about the prospect of gambling winnings being taxed in the very near future.

Will be based on deposits as others have said, not turnover.

not quite sure how this would be in the poker sites interest or how they would benefit from this. I have heard before poker sites do not like sharks because if a weak player loses to a shark at a steeper rate then that is money players take not money the site can take in rake.

This mentality does make logical sense in a way but can be debated. However this is so the sites can take all that money themselves but if the weaker players are limited in how much money they can stake then the sites cant rake that money and thus even with the sharks gone they are in a worse spot then before.

as for finding an excuse to seize a players funds when they have a big win, arent the sites obligated to redistribute the money to the other players? hence how do the site gain here?

The net positive from taxing professional gamblers wouldn't even be a rounding error in the smallest of government departments.

But the net positive from taxing non-professionals will.

I’m guessing you’re not old enough to remember when we were taxed.

Was until 2001.

The big question back then was always, "should I pay the tax on my bet first?", when placing a bet on a horse or a dog which was what nearly all betting was back in those days. (I think the tax was 9% from memory).

"Or should I pay the 9% tax on the total returns if I win?".

I remember the shrewdies (well they weren't that shrewd, they were usually 55+ year old men who spent half the day in the betting shop and who looked like the type who were pleased to get away from 'er indoors), saying:
"always pay the tax first young man", with a voice of experience, certainty and confidence, perhaps also while nodding their head in a semi-assertive fashion.

Someone else would then chime in with, "but you'll probably lose that bet, so save yourself the 9%!".

It was one of (betting) life's big conundrums in those days!

This. The problem is there are a lot of clueless idiots in positions of power in this country who don't understand the greater consequences of bringing in new laws for everyone when they are only to protect a small minority.
Any time you interfere with the flow of money in a free market economy, you damage it. Putting caps on what an individual is allowed to spend on something (whether it's gambling, alcohol or anything else) is going to damage that industry, it will make less money, jobs will be lost, sports will lose sponsors, stock prices fall, economy shrinks.

I've noticed a lot of the gambling companies tv adverts have changed recently advising people to stay in control, set deposit limits, don't bet more than you can afford etc. This is to protect those "vulnerable" people from getting themselves into trouble. Ultimately, the "vulnerable" need to take responsibility for their own actions or join support groups or whatever.
The government bringing in new laws for the entire population is not the way to help them. Unless they just want to ruin the economy and take away everyones financial freedom. Also known as a communist revolution.

The problem with this argument is that you think capitalism is more important than protecting minorities.

I'm not certain you grasp what communism is either.

Stables are great for poker rooms since people winning only get a certain percentage of what they are winning the rest goes to what is directly or indirectly affiliate for the site. So less money needed for the affiliate.

As for big win I should be more precise. First of all I am one of those people who actually take their time in casino as seriously as poker and yes you can get rewarded for doing that. Now pure online casino not so much but sites with poker, sports and casino offerings really don't like that. Often they tailor at least part of their rewards in such a way that people will be incentivized to lose it all in the casino part of the business. So, people braking even or even winning in casino after whatever bonuses are offered are really frowned upon. Thus what I meant with big wins were jackpots on both poker and casino side of the business and really big casino wins, say everything over 3000x. When those get confiscated money either goes back to the casino, back to the game provider or worst case scenario back into the jackpot fund. And every one of those options is a plus for the site.

And yes if you win a tournament money simply gets redistributed. But even here there is a plus for the poker room. When money gets redistributed it trickles down since you eliminate one place. And when money trickles down losing players and stables, that basically work for the poker room, because not all stables were created equal end up getting part of the money.

Finally just to be clear I think all stables should be banned and players should only be allowed to play with their own money. I also think if you are adult there is this thing called personal responsibility and if people want to lose everything in a casino, do drugs, kill themselves in some other way it's up to them and not the benevolent government

Anti-capitalist on a poker forum LOL.
Poker, like all professional sports is capitalism in its purest form.

this reminded me of a funny time in my local pub many years ago

the landlords youngest son was a massive ginger irish lad, really friendly, but not the sharpest tool in the box

so ireland are at home to lichtenstein or similar and are 1/16 odds on

clive put 50 quid on ireland to win, they obliged 5 or 6 nil, he hadnt paid tax so picked up 47 quid back

he couldnt understand why and really lost his rag with all the pisstaking

Just to straighten out a couple of confusions itt...

There is no such thing as a "professional gambler" in the UK (poker or otherwise) and nobody has paid income tax on gambling winnings, since this was established by case law in the mid 1920s.

By the same virtue, gambling winnings cannot be assessed as income (in the UK) and therefore cannot be part of any "affordability" assessment that is a legal requirement (for example for a mortgage).

Since this is a defined legal position, established by case law and recognised as such by HMRC (its on their website somewhere) it can only be changed by primary legislation (an Act of Parliment).

As other posters above have explained (but just to give a little history) the tax referred to above is the old UK "Betting Tax" (9%) that could bet paid at the time (amount) of bet or at the time (amount) of the win...smart punters obviously paid it at the time of the bet! It had no real relevance to poker and it was not an income tax, it was tax on the product or service, like a purchase tax or a form of VAT.

It was abolished by Gordon Brown in 2001 and replaced by a 15% tax on gross profit which is met entirely by the gambling industry themselves. The motivation for abolishing it was the rise in online/offshore gambling which was rendering it unworkable.

Incidentally, the current gambling tax provides a lucrative source of revenue for all UK governments...something they will bear in mind before messing around with it...especially at the moment.

IMHO (fwiw...not a lot ) promoting and protecting responsible gambling by regulating the industry is 100% a good thing and part and parcel of a decent civilised society. Banning gambling activities is an infringement of people's personal liberty (and pretty hypocritical given we have a national lottery). The trick, as always, is finding the right balance. I think the UK is probably one of the better countries at getting this balance right...and way, way ahead of the US for example.

How exactly would they implement that, and wouldn't all the bookies move back to Gib as they did to avoid the previous betting tax?

Poker is market driven but to call it 'capitalism in it's purest forum' is ridiculous and naive. There's a thread here on 2p2 discussing it, if you're interested in the subject enough.

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1...talism-685614/

If they did that it would obviousily effectively shut down online gambling over night. If they pass an order as you've described it could only be with an understanding of gambling volume, yet wanting to shut it down via a legal technicality.

Gambling is big money in the UK, special intrest groups have their fingers in the pie.

This is unlikely to come to fruition.

I'm a UK player and we run the best in online gambling legislation, we haven't even had to consider 10% of the struggles people from other countries face.

tax was only applied on winnings, not stake.

What if you have a rich suga mama who bankrolls your gambling, how do they check that out? I dont BTW just an average job and a grumpy girlfriend but a man can dream.